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^ not sure if being sarcastic or not, but sabermetrics is how they got those 5 players, and got them so cheap and for an extended period of time.

I may not have really been following baseball at the time, but for the most part, they acquired those guys using high draft choices. Tejada wasn't, but as it stands, weren't he and Chavez singled out in the book for not playing how Beane wanted(not playing the percentages, just swinging)? Then there's the roids factor with Tejada....

Originally Posted by Pinstripe power

one guy doesn't take you from yearly playoff conteder to the worst team in football

Also, to add, I disagree that sabermetrics are the biggest reason for the A's success in the early 00's, or the Red Sox the past decade. The truth is, the A's were and the Sox are amateur scouting juggernauts. The Sox don't really spend their money well at all, they make tons of stupid free agency mistakes. But, their farm is just so deep that it makes up for it. Obviously sabermetrics plays a part in that, but really it just seems their scouts are just doing their jobs quite well. Oakland's drafting hasn't really been all that good ever since Beane revamped it, either.

Beane's also done a great job of maximizing his assets, but at some point you have to stop the rebuild and turn your team into a contender. All in all, reading the book for the first time 10 years after the fact does put some perspective on things. A lot of what people took as "fact" about the game was just Beane's philosophy, such as never stealing or bunting. That's definitely something I noticed, and found it funny that the year in question of the book, 2002, was a year when a team, and division rival no less, won a World Series playing the game in a way Beane hates. Pretty ironic.

Originally Posted by Pinstripe power

one guy doesn't take you from yearly playoff conteder to the worst team in football

I wouldn't say that it was the way that Beane hates. He understands the value of stolen bases, but you have to be efficient at it. He doesn't hate them. Those teams couldn't steal because they didn't have base stealers, they had a bunch of guys with "old man skills". But now that old man skills are coveted, he doesn't exactly focus on them as much, hence why the A's have more base stealers now. Those early 2000s teams were built both on the draft and finding cheap production. Again, these philosophies didn't really start with Beane. The A's had been using advanced statistics to evaluate players back in the 80s. Probably a big reason why they got 3 rookies of the year in a row. Alderson has stated that a major contributor to trading back for Ricky Henderson was that he realized how valuable he was because of the amount of walks he drew.

I may not have really been following baseball at the time, but for the most part, they acquired those guys using high draft choices. Tejada wasn't, but as it stands, weren't he and Chavez singled out in the book for not playing how Beane wanted(not playing the percentages, just swinging)? Then there's the roids factor with Tejada....

And teams miss on high draft picks over 65% of the time in baseball (as in, they never even make it to the big leagues, much less turn into stars).

One of the philosphies in Moneyball was that too many teams draft high schoolers out of the draft, high schoolers that are statistically less probable to ever make it to the big leagues.

Zito and Mulder were top draft picks, the rest were late rounders or free agents

Zito was a 9, Mulder a 2, Chavez a 10. They let other teams take high schoolers. The only reason they took Chavez, a high schooler is because all of their top choices had just been taken, nobody fell to them.

The year they took Zito, they laughed when Bradley was taken just ahead of him.

I'm not saying this is an incredibly accurate formula, but the rest of baseball has become aware since then that high schoolers are less likely to ever make it. And it was originally assumed that while high schoolers are more risky, that they are more likely to turn into stars is also not true. If you are taking a high schooler, it's because he is already good enough, or better than many college athletes. You don't take high schoolers any more based on tools. Which is a fundamental change that Moneyball helped to bring to front offices.

@ your second post.

Scouting and bringing guys up cheap is just smart baseball management. I wouldn't call that sabr-metrics either. But the A's kind of had to do that, while the Red Sox realized it was more efficient, even for a large market club. It's always better to bring a team along with prospects, so much cheaper and better. But that's just fundamentals, that isn't really sabr-metrics. They did use sabr to get the right guys though.